In this study, a basic design of area-arrayed graphene nanoribbon (GNR) strain sensors was proposed to realize the next generation of strain sensors. To fabricate the area-arrayed GNRs, a top-down approach was employed, in which GNRs were cut out from a large graphene sheet using an electron beam lithography technique. GNRs with widths of 400 nm, 300 nm, 200 nm, and 50 nm were fabricated, and their current-voltage characteristics were evaluated. The current values of GNRs with widths of 200 nm and above increased linearly with increasing applied voltage, indicating that these GNRs were metallic conductors and a good ohmic junction was formed between graphene and the electrode. There were two types of GNRs with a width of 50 nm, one with a linear current–voltage relationship and the other with a nonlinear one. We evaluated the strain sensitivity of the 50 nm GNR exhibiting metallic conduction by applying a four-point bending test, and found that the gauge factor of this GNR was about 50. Thus, GNRs with a width of about 50 nm can be used to realize a highly sensitive strain sensor.
Germanium monosulfide as a layered material analogous to black phosphorus has recently been synthesized in layers up to several square micrometers in area using a physical vapor transport process. However, single-crystalline GeS tends to be sparsely, haphazardly, and discretely nucleated on the target substrate. This phenomenon has hitherto impeded the development of applications since it limits the obtainable size of crystalline GeS films. In this study, we investigate a different heating recipe for synthesizing continuous large-area GeS without the use of metal catalysts. By laying down a pre-deposited amorphous nanostructured GeS film, a polycrystalline GeS film of the order of square centimeters can be attained using a purpose-built vapor transport equipment. This growth process can be used to fabricate a continuous polycrystalline GeS film (1 cm × 1.5 cm) on different substrates such as SiO 2 /Si or mica. The observed minimum thickness of polycrystalline GeS films is around 100 nm. Large-area GeS films synthesized on a mica substrate can also be easily exfoliated and transferred onto chosen substrates, giving them significant potential for use in nextgeneration electronic and optoelectronic applications. This method may also be useful for synthesizing other large-area chalcogenide materials.
Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), nano scale strips of graphene which consists of carbon hexagonal unit cell, are expected as next generation materials for high performance devices because of its unique super-conductive properties. When the strip width of graphene is cut into nano-scale, thinner than 70 nm, however, band gap starts to appear in the thin GNRs at room temperature, and thus, they show semiconductive properties. Previous studies have shown that the bad gap of GNR is highly sensitive to strain, which indicates that GNRs are candidates for a detective element of highly sensitive strain sensors. In practical applications, ohmic contact between a metallic electrode and a semiconductive detective element is indispensable for these sensors. By considering the effect of the width of GNRs on their electronic properties, dumbbell-shape GNRs (DS-GNRs) structures have been proposed for the basic structure of the GNR-base strain sensors, which consisted of GNRs with two different widths. Center portion of the DS-GNR is narrower than 70 nm and GNRs wider than 70 nm are attached at the both ends of the center GNR as electrode. Both semiconductive and metallic portions of a strain sensor consist of only carbon atoms using this DS-GNR structure. Even though this structure consists of one material, the effect of the interaction between two metallic and semiconductive GNRs must be clarified to realize the strain sensor with high performance. In this study, first principle calculations were applied to the analysis of the electronic band structure of the DS-GNR based on density functional theory (DFT). It was found that the local distribution of energy states of electrons and charges varied drastically as strong functions of the length of GNRs and the magnitude of the applied strain. The current through the DS-GNR structure was converged as the length of the semiconductive portion increased. In the models with enough length, transport property of the DS-GNR showed high sensitivity to strain. Thus, the effective resistivity of the structure varied from metallic to semiconductive, and therefore, this structure is appropriate for the next-generation highly sensitive and deformable strain sensors.
The authors have proposed the formation of dumbbell-shape graphene nanoribbon (GNR) for developing various semi-conductive materials with metallic electrode at both ends. The novel dumbbell-shape structure, which has a center narrow part and wide parts to sandwich the narrow part, can be considered as a composite structure consisting of two single GNRs with different ribbon width. In this study, the electronic band structure of this dumbbell-shape GNR was analyzed by using the first principle calculation method. All the first-principles calculations were performed using DFT. Throughout these calculations, the electronic band structures, densities of states, and orbital distributions of the new dumbbell-shape structure GNR were examined to describe the electronic properties of dumbbell-shape GNRs and predict the performance of strain sensors. The band gap of dumbbell-shape GNRs is different to that of single GNRs. The magnitude of the band gap of the dumbbell-shape GNR depends on the combination of the single GNRs and the difference in the width of narrow part and wide parts. The main change to the band gap is attributed to a change in the orbital distributions of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals (LUMO) and the highest occupied molecular orbitals (HOMO). In addition, when a dumbbell-shape GNR undergoes a uniaxial tensile strain, its band gap showed high strain sensitivity as was expected. Therefore, the GNR material with a dumbbell-shape structure has great potential for use in highly sensitive strain sensors.
The area-arrayed dumbbell-shape Graphene Nano-Ribbons (GNRs) were fabricated by using chemical vapor deposition and photolithography technologies. The electronic behavior of the fabricated GNR-FET structure was evaluated for its photonic properties with an incident light intensity of 1-mW. The 200-nm wide GNRs structure showed metallic properties, while those with the width of 40 nm showed semiconductive properties as was expected. The light-induced photocurrent was observed in all the fabricated GNRs structures. The average photocurrent observed in the 2-mm wide graphene structure was 3.3 A/m2 and that observed in the 40-nm wide area-arrayed GNRs structure was 261 A/m2, respectively. Based on this photocurrent, the external photosensitivity of the 40-nm wide GNRs structure was about 2.6 × 105 A/W.m2 and this value was much larger than that of conventional Si-base solar cells. In addition, the effect of strain on the resistivity of GNRs was measured. Uniaxial tensile strain was applied to the area-arrayed GNRs structures with the width from 200 nm to 40 nm. The gauge factor obtained from the GNRs with the width wider than 100 nm was about 3, and that with the width of 40 nm was about 160. Therefore, highly-sensitive strain sensors can be realized by using GNRs thinner than 70 nm.
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